


A Lesson in Beauty

by luxdancer



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Forgotten Realms
Genre: Death from Old Age, Heartache, Heartbreak, High Fantasy, Maybe - Freeform, Murder, emo teenager
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 07:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxdancer/pseuds/luxdancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the Forgotten Realms universe of Faerun, a young handmaiden of Sune (Goddess of Love and Beauty, also known as Lady Firehair) learns a lesson in beauty.</p><p>The backstory for my character in a campaign I was in.</p><p>Cast:<br/>Aida Celadon - a young and gifted handmaiden of Sune<br/>Amida Celadon - a priestess of Sune, mother of Aida<br/>Seferis Zekari - a priest of Sune<br/>Pelleas Duin - a young cleric of Sune<br/>Blessed Palémon - the high priest of the temple of Sune</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was a subtle death, Aida thought, the first sharp pain giving way to that lasting dull ache. It didn't stop, and it numbed and greyed her perception of the world until all the beauty seemed faded and spoiled by it - like festival banners fallen into the mud and trod upon.

The temple of Sune, with its white marble and gold-leaf trellis, with its translucent silk drapes and stained glass, with its huge shafts of sunlight drifting with motes of dust that glittered like diamond powder, seemed distant. The laughter of the other handmaidens, priests and priestesses, were ghosts echoing in the vaunted halls. It seemed that she occupied a different world than they, darkening the rooms with her slow dying.

Was it supposed to feel like this? No one had warned her. They had talked of the sleepless nights, the anguish and joy of anticipation, of the muted sorrow of rejection - all she had seen in the temple of Sune. Young lovers being turned away by the subject of their desire.

What gods did those in her situation turn to?

Aida sat up in her bed, the satin-lined duvet slipping down around her. One of the other handmaidens had opened the gauzy curtains that barricaded her bed from the rest of the world. Sunlight was streaming through the open windows, carried on a warm summer breeze that made the wind chimes sing as it passed. She could smell the sweet scent of the flowers that bloomed in the gardens surrounding the temple.

Aida took stock of her surroundings, her small but elegantly appointed cell separated by ivory screens from the other handmaidens. At the foot of her bed was mahogany chest with cherry blossoms and little sparrows carved and embossed with pearl inlays where her clothes were stored. Beside the bed was a dresser that also acted as a table, with a polished mirror set in carved wood and a silver basin that one of her room-mates had kindly filled with scented water. Small roses floated in the basin, drifting in lazy circles as the wind pushed them.

Most of her life she had spent in the easy beauty of the temple of Sune. Her mother had been a priestess, whose dalliance with a traveling elven bard had conceived her. Aida's exotic beauty had been born of that pairing and her mother had been quick to dedicate her new daughter to her goddess.

Last year, her father had returned to the city and had paid them a visit. He regaled Aida with stories of his adventures across Faerun, of ancient ruins and fearsome beasts, of the aching beauty of his elven homeland. He had instilled some curiosity in her for the world outside the temple, which she had never seen.

Of course, a year ago she had had no real desire to leave - for she had had her beloved, whom she would have followed anywhere. And he had been firmly entrenched in the city.

Aida slumped back in the bed, pulling the covers around her at the thought of him. The fear of seeing him in the halls of the temple, of making the beauty of Sune ugly with her sorrow and pain, caused her to duck back into the safety of her bed.

She heard the sound of the trellis door slide open and the whisper of soft slippers on the marble floor. "Aida, why are you still in bed?" Her mother's voice.

Aida peeked out from under the covers and looked at her mother, still handsome though the lines of age crossed her proud face. "I do not feel well, mother, that is all."  
Her mother sat on the bed and gave her a long, hard look. "You think hiding in here will ease the pain in your heart?"

"Yes." Aida replied with a defiant certainty.

Her mother rolled her eyes, shaking her long, fire-red hair - a mark beloved of the temple. The jeweled bangles on her slender porcelain-pale arms shivered, sending slivers of light across the floor. "You are getting out of bed, Aida, and you are getting dressed. In your finest clothes. And you will go to prayer, and you will outshine any other with your beauty, and make your beloved tremble with regret." Her mother grasped her by the shoulders. "Do you understand me?"

"But..."

"I will not warrant any defiance in this matter," she went to the mahogany chest and opened it, sorting through the filmy silks and rich satins contained therein. Aida sat, watching mutely, as her mother began laying out various costumes on the bed before her. "Now, this colour suits your complexion but it is a rather dark red and it makes you look more golden-haired than red. This gold would bring out the red in your hair..." Her mother's voice began to sink into background noise as Aida stared out the window at the cityscape, those tall spires piercing the clear blue sky.

When her mother was set on something, there was very little she could be denied, so Aida allowed herself to be dressed and attended to until her reflection in the mirror was almost unrecognizable as the miserable creature she felt herself to be. When her mother was satisfied with her appearance, she pulled Aida out into the corridor and walked her towards the main temple chamber. Many of the temple's inhabitants and patrons were lounging before a representation of Sune carved from crystal with red gold at its heart, like flames gleaming in Lady Firehair's veins. The statue scattered light around the white room, rainbows quivering along the languid forms of Her worshippers.

A group of young clerics eagerly surrounded her mother, and by proxy herself, offering exotic fruits and goblets of imported elven wine. Their faces blurred together, beautiful youths her age that paled when she thought of her beloved. Two handsome, grey-haired women sat at the base of the statue with lutes, singing a love duet, their eyes locked on each other. The bards - for as long as Aida could remember, those two bards had always been together, singing in the temple.

"Fair Aida, Lady Amida, please do us the honour to sit with us?" One of the clerics asked, a young man with a halo of dark curls and dark eyes. Aida faintly recalled his name, Pelleas. He addressed her mother, but for some reason, his eyes never left her. Aida felt her mother nudge her towards the young man. Reluctantly, herded by her mother, Aida gave a silent nod of assent and they were led to a collection of pillows.

Most of the clerics waited on her mother, whose influence was almost as far-reaching as Aida's beloved - perhaps even rivaling Blessed Palémon, it was no secret that Aida's mother would succeed him when Palémon passed into the final embrace of Lady Firehair, to rest eternally in the beauty of Her realm. Watching him, Aida thought that the gentle old man looked wistful, fading from the living world, as though he were ready to go. Aida could understand, his beloved had already left the mortal world and he had brought so, so much beauty to the lives of others - what else did he have left here?

Palémon caught Aida's eyes and they exchanged a smile, he gestured and Aida followed the line of hand to notice a shy cleric sitting near her side. He was her age, and handsome, and he had not said a word other than to greet Aida and her mother, had not involved himself in the conversations, only tried not to stare at Aida. At this moment, her mother noticed his attentiveness. "You are Pelleas Duin, are you not?"

The boy snapped his eyes to Aida's mother. "Y-yes, Lady Amida." 

Amida's eyes slide between Pelleas and Aida and Aida tried to glare and dissuade whatever matchmaking she had in her thoughts - _Don't you DARE, Mother_

"I remember meeting your mother, Pelleas, she was a talented poet," Amida leaned against the divan. "I've heard that you have her talent, would you grace us with something?"

He blushed prettily, "I would never say that I have her talent, my lady, I do write a little. When I have a muse," Pelleas met Aida's gaze and held it, though she could see that he was trying not to look away in embarrassment. "I wrote a poem to my muse, if you'll allow it-"

"Of course, my dear," Amida replied.

Pelleas took a breath and started to recite.

Almost purposefully, a musical burst of laughter distracted Aida from the earnest young cleric and she looked up to see a group of people entering the chamber. Her mother made a small sound of disapproval, leaning forward into the vision at the corner of Aida's eye. Surrounded by lovely young girls draped in filmy veils and boys with their athletic bodies oiled and anointed, was her beloved, tall and proud, crowned with his silvering hair. He greeted groups of patrons and clerics with a magnanimous smile, then would send one of the girls and one of the boys with them.

He came, last, to her mother's group, only a single girl at his side. The girl simpered and clung to him, her nearly naked form pressed against his silk robes. He bowed to them, glancing at Aida, who looked away and tried to suppress her desire to fling herself at his feet. "Lady Amida. Fair day to you all." He nodded at the others.

"Seferis." Her mother replied, with a gracious smile. "Fair day. Sune's blessing upon you."

There was a moment that passed, Aida could not interpret it, but it made the temple feel- colder, like some unspoken ugly thing had walked its way between them. Seferis glanced at Aida, and then at Pelleas, and did not linger long. He said a few more pleasantries and then left, with his arm clasped around the girl, to speak with the other clerics again. Amida sat a little prouder, shifting amongst the cushions.

Aida watched as many of the clerics that Seferis spoke with made their way to her mother and they would speak of trivialities, but, like some veil had been partly lifted from Aida's eyes and she began to feel as though there were two conversations coached in the same words about the beautiful weather or the fine wine or someone's new-found romance.

Later, when they were alone, she asked her mother about it - "I feel like they were saying things, without saying them."

Lady Amida sighed and wrapped her arms around Aida, "You're still a child, my darling. Stay innocent a little while longer, innocence is beauty." She let her mother stroke her hair until she had fallen asleep, watching the night sky through the billowing edges of the curtains - a veil shifting to conceal and reveal the clear plain light of the moon.

In the morning, they discovered that Blessed Palémon had passed in his sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

As with all things related to the Lady Firehair, the Heartwarder, Blessed Palémon, had a funeral draped in beauty. 

No, it was a cacophony of beauty. 

Banners were raised, emblazoned with Sune's symbol (a stylized young woman with red hair) except that the backdrop was in black, edged with gold. Flowers occupied every conceivable space, spilling across hallways and doorways - elaborate arrangements of dahlias and calla lilies and hellebore and orchids and flowers that Aida had no name for, from the far reaches of the realm, flowers the colour of burnished gold from the Elven forests and strange, luminescent flowers from the Deep of the Dwarven kingdoms. Palémon had been well-loved and well-admired, indeed. The temple was filled with the scent of them.

Music, sweet and sorrowful, echoed through the temple grounds at all hours, played softly at night, like a distant lullaby, but ever-present. Artists from other cities traveled a long way to add their craft to the memory of the Heartwarder, works of every kind of beauty raised in Palémon's name. A new window of stained glass was commissioned, based on Palémon's design, a project he had never completed - Aida watched as craftsmen and craftswomen worked feverishly into the night to complete it.

She wept for Palémon, of course, with the rest of the handmaidens. She had loved the old man like her grandfather - but in a way she was happy for him. He had gone on to meet Sune, and to reunite with his lover, and he would be forever without pain or ugliness. It was the natural conclusion, she thought, to a life spent well.

However, Aida barely saw her mother those weeks, Amida was Palémon's assumed successor and she spent long evenings with the other priests and priestesses making arrangements. The handmaidens gossiped - Seferis had raised the issue of the Choosing, for Sune Herself had the right to select her Heartwarder, it was not for mortal men and women to decide. "The sanctity of the Heartwarder is not decided by popularity," he had said. 

Again, the sensation that there was more going on than Aida could see, more than the endless parade of mourners gathering from every corner of the Faith. She strained to understand what lay beneath it all.

When she started thinking about this, about the gossip and what Seferis said, Aida saw, in her mind's eye, Palémon's bed chambers the morning he was discovered - a glass of Elven wine by his bedside, the ring of emerald at the bottom of the crystal glass from what was left. Aida was not certain why this struck her, out of all her memories of the past few weeks.

On the day of the procession, the close of Palémon's funeral, the completed window was raised and set in place, the light shattering into thousands of colours on the floor of the temple where it had been placed. The watching mourners gasped at the artistry, Palémon's legacy and the hard work of the people who mourned him.

"He was truly a child of Sune," her mother had said tearfully. "He will be missed."

"May his successor bring as much beauty to the world as he did," Seferis would add in his own eulogy.

There was a strange electricity to the air after that.

Late into the evening, Aida's mother came to her with a staff. It was a thing suited for a priestess of Sune, made of white wood, polished and carved with intricate curling designs edged in gold. She had shaken Aida awake and Aida, bleary-eyed and seeing only by the dimness of the moon, focused on the staff and the familiarity of her mother's voice.

"I thought- you might want this, Aida." Amida held it out.

Aida sat up in her bed, sleepily, took it between her hands. She felt something in it, something drawn down- or drawn across, rather, from a place greater and more vast than Aida could imagine. "What is this?" She meant more to say _Why are you giving this to me_ , but those words did not come to her mind until she had already asked the other question.

"Your father made it for me, when I was young and had just become a priestess." Her mother traced a finger along the carvings with a wistful smile. "You're becoming a woman in so many ways, Aida. I thought it was time you should have it."

"But- I'm not a priestess yet..."

Amida pulled Aida into a tight embrace. "I know you will be, I know you'll make me proud." It was then that Aida noticed that her mother was not dressed for bed, but wearing a rough, plain woolen gown, no jewelry or adornments on her arms or face, and her hair was tied tightly back. It gave her a stark, stern appearance, it made her look much older, much more worn.

"Mother, why are you dressed like that?"

Amida pushed back Aida's hair from her face and looked at her, as if trying to memorize her features. "I must go somewhere, not long." She paused, hesitating. "When I return, I will explain everything. Just know that I love you, my most precious daughter."

The way she said those words put anxiety in Aida's heart. "Why can't you tell me now?"

"There's no time for it. Go to sleep, sweetling, I'll be back before you know it."

"But isn't the Choosing tomorrow? Shouldn't you stay for that?"

Amida frowned, as though troubled by some other thought. "It won't matter if-" She held Aida again. "Aida, oh dear child. I can answer your questions soon, my love." She looked as though she wished to say more but stopped herself. Instead she released Aida and stood up. "I'll be back soon." She said firmly. Aida clung to the staff as she watched her mother, dressed so strangely, disappear into the darkness beyond the doorway.

In the morning, it felt like a dream, except for the staff, laying in the bed with her.


	3. Chapter 3

The clerics and priests and handmaidens and acolytes all gathered in the main hall for the Choosing, they were all gowned in their finest regalia - even the lowliest novitiate, on the hopes of receiving Sune's notice, even if She did not Choose them. The flowers from Palémon's funeral had been swept out and only the new stained glass window, with the small memorial shrine below it, stood as testament to his passing. Still, every candle on that shrine was lit, his memory still alive and fresh in the minds of the Faithful.

Aida paused a moment in front of the shrine, looking at the rows of tiny flames and then went to find a seat among the other handmaidens.

Seferis was among the priests on the dais, bowing his head in reverence to Sune. They seemed to be waiting for something, or someone, not the Lady's Choosing - Aida's mother, who was not among them.

Aida looked around the rest of the Faithful, trying to pick out her mother's red hair, her familiar poise, but could find nothing amongst the sea of faces. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, feeling her heart beat faster, her entire body coiled with tension and sick with it. Helpless, she prayed to Sune, nothing with words as she could not, _dared_ not, find words to shape her fears into certainties. She could only pray for love and beauty- her mother's beautiful red hair, her mother's love, the pride in her eyes as she passed the staff to Aida's hands-

 _Mother_ , Aida prayed, _Please come back, Mother-_

A shadow came into the temple.

The candles flickered, shivered and blinked out.

Aida turned to see the black veils of a member of the Most Solemn Order of the Silent Shroud, those who handled the actual bodies of the dead in the name of Kelemvor. They were accompanied by the armor and cloak of the city guard, his face serious, stark, and so very plain.

The priests looked to one another and moved as a group, led by Seferis, to meet the strangers. The temple became a cavern of whispering - the handmaidens and acolytes and novitiates furiously murmuring together, and the guard speaking to Seferis in a hushed voice.

Aida stood and moved between the pillars of the temple so that she could hear what was being said - she only caught one word, but it was enough.

 _Amida_.

"What about my mother?" She demanded, leaving the shadow of the pillar. The handmaidens spun in their seats at the sound of her voice, breaking through the whispering, and stood, drawn towards them. "What about my _mother_?"

The guard looked sad, stared at his gloves, old cracked leather and repaired several times over. "Are you Lady Amida Celadon's daughter?"

"I am-"

Seferis moved between them, "Aida, darling one, this is a matter for adults, go back with the handmaidens to your quarter. The Choosing can happen later."

"I am an adult!" Aida replied, offended at Seferis's expression. "You seemed to think so when you _bedded_ me." A polite cough from the guard.

"It is not something that needs to be seen by a Sunite," Seferis insisted, gently. He took her by the hands and walked her back, back among the huddle of the other handmaidens. A distant thought, another younger foolish girl would have delighted in his nearness, at his touch, but Aida did not care. She had heard her mother's name, whispered, and she was afraid. "She doesn't need to see it," he repeated to the guard.

"She is her daughter, it is her right-" The guard looked past Seferis to Aida - she saw nothing of Sune's beauty in the man's face, his eyes were stones, his mouth was stones, the cobbles of the city streets, of things that Aida had no familiarity with. He was an ugly man, no beauty to bring to her. Aida did not want beauty, she wanted her _mother_. She shook off Seferis's hands, took a step forward towards the guard.

"No one should have to look upon that ugliness," Seferis replied smoothly, trying to reach for Aida, to pull her by the shoulders back into the security _blindness_ of the handmaidens.

"No, let me see- I want to see," Aida cried out, pushing the other handmaidens, Seferis, from her. She burst out of the temple into the harsh, unmerciful light of day to see the ring of City Guard, the hidden faces of the Most Solemn Order of the Silent Shroud. "Where is my mother?" They parted, revealing the body-

Red hair-

Red blood-

So much red, the ruinous gaping red at her mother's throat, an ugly red tear, beneath the shroud the insinuation of uglier redder things-

Aida screamed, and she kept screaming, raw and animal and without beauty at all.


	4. Chapter 4

Aida had nothing left in her.

She stared at the ceiling of the handmaidens' quarters, clutching the staff to her chest.

She tried to remember her mother's face, but could only see the red ruin of her throat.

She decided she hated the colour red, and would forevermore hate it.

She hated herself for being so childish - someone had cut her mother's throat, among other things perhaps, it was not the fault of the colour red. Aida hated- she felt so much hate, welling up inside her, directionless, aimless. _Someone had cut her mother's throat_ , taken her away forever and there was no comfort in pretending she was with Sune now. Death was ugly, when you saw it, when it was not dressed up in flowers and banners and sweet sad music.

Aida clenched the staff.

She tried to cry, but there was no relief to be found in tears, nor in the companionship of the other handmaidens. Aida found them insipid, ignorant, beautiful shallow creatures. She hated them, and then hated herself for thinking that.

On the third night, Seferis came to see her.

She felt nothing when he appeared at the door. She felt nothing when he sat beside her on her bed. 

She felt nothing.

"How sincerely sorry I am about the loss of your mother - and so soon after Blessed Palémon left us. If you need any comfort, dearest Aida..." He reached out and began stroking her on her shoulders and back. Aida stared at him, blankly, and all of the sudden she did not see him through love's eyes. His age no longer seemed dignified, his imperfections no longer dismissible, his faults no longer forgivable.

Aida pulled away, going to the window where the night sky seemed empty, Selune's light seemed cold and harsh. She wrapped her arms around her bare shoulders and said, clearly but quietly, "Please go, Seferis. I'd rather be alone."

He moved closer to her, "Your mother would not have wanted you to be alone-"

Something in her broke.

"WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF MY MOTHER?" She screamed, throwing a jade vase, a beautiful fragile thing made so finely that you could easily see light through it. Seferis was quick enough to dodge it and the vase shattered into a thousand fragments against the wall, falling to the floor with the sound of broken chimes. He looked at her, stunned and then distaste twisted his face - but Aida did not care, she did not care at all.

"Very well, I shall leave you _alone_." Seferis paused with a sneer and then turned on his heel and left through the open door.

Aida felt the sudden urge to break some more things, some more of the lovely, beautiful things that filled her room. She wanted to tear down the curtains and rip them into shreds, she wanted to crush the elegantly carved screens into splinters, she wanted to run screaming through the temple and jar the harmonious music with the dissonance of her voice - she wanted to destroy all this beauty that had been her life. Her mother was dead, someone had murdered her, and the world hid so much ugliness that beauty seemed a lie.

But she did not. 

Instead she clenched her fists until her nails dug into the skin of her palms, until she drew blood and pain, and she breathed and stared out at the city. The heartache she had felt when Seferis rejected her seemed so stupid and childish now, against this agony, her mother's blood and her mother's hair, more red than she could ever imagined, ugly against stone. The temple did not seem so much like home now, without Palemon, without her mother - a slow nightmare.

Her eyes were drawn to the staff - _Your father made it for me_ , she remembered. Her _father_ , wandering the world. He did not know, Aida suspected, he should know - the truth.

She made her decision then.


	5. Chapter 5

She had told no one of her plans specifically, but the other handmaidens noticed when she started gathering her things. _Aida is leaving us?_ Whispers running up and down the hallways, Lady Amida Celadon's daughter, who had never stepped outside the city and barely ever stepped beyond the confines of the temple, was leaving. Aida had found that guard, the one who said she had the right to see, and asked him about traveling. 

He was blunt about the dangers of the road, but helped her find a trustworthy company to travel with.

So Aida prepared and tried not to think about her mother, about the hollowness inside her own chest.

A voice broke through the silence of the handmaiden's quarter, while the rest of the girls were asleep or out with their lovers. It was sudden and it startled her

"You're leaving us." Aida turned to see Pelleas in the doorway of the room, his arms crossed tightly against his chest and his face in shadow.

"I am." She replied, turning back to her belongings. The gift of her father, the magic satchel that held so much more than it seemed, looked empty lying on the bed - but it was not.

"Please don't." He said quietly. Aida looked up again and saw that he had stepped forward into the wavering candlelight. "Please stay." His voice trembled and his dark eyes were pleading. "We need you here."

"I..." Pelleas took three long strides and fell to his knees beside her, taking her hands in his. Aida stared at him, his beautiful face and sensuous mouth - and found herself unmoved by his beauty. Rather, that she could only think of her mother, who was beautiful, and then her mother's ruined body. "I can't." Aida extracted her hands from his and went back to packing her things. "I have no reason to stay."

He reached for her again and kissed her. "I love you." Again, he pleaded. "Please stay with me. Stay."

"Pelleas..." He kissed her again and she pulled away. "No... it isn't enough."

"Love isn't enough?" 

The truth, said aloud, seemed ugly. 

But that is what truth was, Aida had decided - ugly, barren, and unwanted.

"Yes," she replied. He recoiled at that answer and then she quickly amended her statement, "I don't know. Perhaps." Aida shook her head and looked away, folding and re-folding a long, silk sash. "It doesn't matter. I have to tell my father, I must find him. He should hear it from me."

"But..." Pelleas reached out to touch her face, but stopped. "Will you come back?"

Aida shrugged, a slight, subtle motion in her slender shoulders. "Perhaps. And perhaps I will stay with my father." She finally put the sash down and looked at Pelleas, at the droplets of tears caught in his long lashes reflecting candlelight. "This temple is the only home I have ever known, and now, without my mother, it feels... barren."

"It will be barren without you," he replied softly. "You, and Lady Amida, and Blessed Palémon." Pelleas stood and stepped back, regarding her for a long silence. "But... if love cannot hold you here, or the promise of love... then nothing can." He walked to the door, pausing to give her a pained backwards glance before disappearing down the darkened corridor.

Aida hesitated, but only for the briefest of moments, before throwing the whole of her effort into packing her things away. She picked up the staff that her mother had given her, threw the satchel over her shoulder, and slipped out and away from the temple - a pale shadow in the dead of night.

In her heart, whispered the deepest of blasphemies, the ugliest of questions: 

What was love, what was beauty, in the face of suffering, but transient and illusionary - and in the end, inconsequential?


End file.
